Published 1:00 am, Thursday, January 22, 2009

The food and dairy store was ranked No. 53 on the magazine's list, which was released Thursday. Stew's was No. 20 among other small companies and No. 13 for best benefits.

"In this day and age, in terms of what you see going on with the economy, we're very proud of this honor," said
Tom Anrico
, president of the Danbury store on Federal Road.

"I've been with the company for 32 years. I started out filling freezers in the Norwalk store," Anrico added. "I'm what you'd call a typical Stew Leonard's employee. We really stress rewarding hard work with promoting from within."

According to company figures, 81 percent of Stew Leonard's management has been promoted from within, including two other high-ranking employees at the Danbury store.

Mike Hughes
, director of operations, has been with the company for 35 years, and
Mike Derivan
, director of sales, for 30 years.

The company, which posted $350 million in revenue in 2007, has never had a layoff in its 40-year history.

"I feel like we've been invited to the Super Bowl," said Stew Leonard Jr., president and CEO of Stew Leonard's. "I couldn't be happier or more proud of our team members."

Neither could Anrico, who has spent the past three years running the Danbury store.

"We had a big meeting (Thursday) morning in our warehouse," said Anrico, 50. "Everybody was hooting and hollering. It was great."

Anrico said Stew Leonard's was a great company to work for long before Fortune magazine began recognizing it.

"My son, who is 18 years old, had open-heart surgery when he was 2 weeks old. But I had already used up all my vacation time," Anrico said. "The Leonard family told me to stay home as long as I needed to.

"I was home two weeks and never missed a paycheck," Anrico went on. "I knew right then this was the company where I wanted to spend my career."